fare
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /fɛə(ɹ)/
  • (America, non-Mary-marry-merry) IPA: /fɛɚ/
  • (America, Mary-marry-merry) IPA: /fɛɹ/
Etymology 1

From Middle English fare, from the merger of Old English fær and faru, from Proto-Germanic *farą and *farō, from Proto-Indo-European *per-.

Noun

fare

  1. (obsolete) A going; journey; travel; voyage; course; passage.
    Synonyms: Thesaurus:journey
  2. (countable) Money paid for a transport ticket.
    train fare
    bus fare
    taxi fare
  3. (countable) A paying passenger, especially in a taxi.
  4. (uncountable) Food and drink.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC ↗:
      “ […] She takes the whole thing with desperate seriousness. But the others are all easy and jovial—thinking about the good fare that is soon to be eaten, about the hired fly, about anything.”
  5. (uncountable) Supplies for consumption or pleasure.
    The television channel tended to broadcast unremarkable downmarket fare.
  6. (countable, UK, crime, slang) A prostitute's client.
    Synonyms: Thesaurus:prostitute's client
Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Etymology 2

From Middle English faren, from Old English faran, from Proto-West Germanic *faran, from Proto-Germanic *faraną, from Proto-Indo-European *per-.

Cognate with Western Frisian farre, Dutch varen, German fahren, Danish - and Norwegian Bokmål fare, Norwegian Nynorsk - and Icelandic fara and Swedish fara.

Verb

fare (fares, present participle faring; simple past and past participle fared)

  1. (intransitive, archaic) To go, travel.
    Behold! A knight fares forth.
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗:
      […] And fared like a furious wyld Beare, / Whose whelpes are stolne away, she being otherwhere.
    • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, Canto XXV, page 42 ↗:
      I know that this was Life,—the track
      ⁠Whereon with equal feet we fared;
      ⁠And then, as now, the day prepared
      The daily burden for the back.
    • 1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Night 17:
      Then he came down rejoicing and said, "I have seen what seemeth to be a city as 'twere a pigeon." Hereat we rejoiced and, ere an hour of the day had passed, the buildings showed plain in the offing and we asked the Captain, "What is the name of yonder city?" and he answered "By Allah I wot not, for I never saw it before and never sailed these seas in my life: but, since our troubles have ended in safety, remains for you only to land their with your merchandise and, if you find selling profitable, sell and make your market of what is there; and if not, we will rest here two days and provision ourselves and fare away.
  2. (intransitive) To get along, succeed (well or badly); to be in any state, or pass through any experience, good or bad; to be attended with any circumstances or train of events.
    • 1642, John Denham, Cooper's Hill:
      So fares the stag among the enraged hounds.
  3. (intransitive, archaic) To eat, dine.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Luke 16:19 ↗:
      There was a certain rich man which […] fared sumptuously every day.
  4. (intransitive, impersonal) To happen well, or ill.
    We shall see how it will fare with him.
    • 1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain'd. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC ↗, page 3 ↗:
      So fares it when with truth falsehood contends.
  5. (intransitive) To move along; proceed; progress; advance
    We will continue to monitor how the hurricane fares against projected models.
    • 1859, Henry David Thoreau, A Plea for Captain John Brown:
      He was a man of Spartan habits, and at sixty was scrupulous about his diet at your table, excusing himself by saying that he must eat sparingly and fare hard, as became a soldier or one who was fitting himself for difficult enterprises, a life of exposure.
Translations Translations Translations Translations


This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004
Offline English dictionary